


How Very

by stupidityisdangerous



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Closeted Will Byers, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gay Will Byers, Inappropriate Humor, Minor Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Movie Reference, Movie: Heathers (1989), Music: New Kids On The Block (NKOTB), Music: Pixies, weight mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 12:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15049544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupidityisdangerous/pseuds/stupidityisdangerous
Summary: It's a dull rainy day in Hawkins and Steve takes The Party to see Heathers (1989). Post-S2 canon.





	How Very

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Lex](http://coolkidcorbyn.tumblr.com/), [Kennedy](http://harringtonwife.tumblr.com/), [Mars](http://bigbilliamdenbro.tumblr.com/), and [Katrina](http://obviouslyoleff.tumblr.com/) for pre-reading.
> 
> You can also find me on [Tumblr](http://shady-sink.tumblr.com/).

It’s Sunday, April 2, 1989, and the warm and inviting sunny weather of spring is rudely interrupted by the rain pouring hard down on the small town. The Party is supposed to be chilling, Hopper has dropped off El and Will at the Wheeler house and Steve picked up Dustin, Max, and Lucas so they wouldn’t have to ride their bikes—or skateboard—in the rain.

They finished their latest D&D campaign the evening before and with Mike’s elaborate storylines and perfectionist nature it can sometimes take weeks to write another one. And Will and Max have spent so many shifts at The Palace these past weeks that they can’t stand the idea of returning for leisure.

So the six eighteen-year-olds, now awkward and lanky teenagers on the cusp of adulthood as their senior year draws to a close, sit smashed together on the worn couch of the Wheelers’ basement, watching reruns of mindless cartoons in complete and utter boredom.

Steve, coming down the basement steps after chatting with a cheery Karen Wheeler upstairs, notices the underwhelmed mood of the room immediately. “Come on, dipshits,” he says, “you’re depressing me sitting there so bored and sad. Let’s go see a movie.”

And so to The Hawk they head.

* * *

Steve’s BMW convertible only seats four but the kids make good use of the cluttered space, Max calling shotgun before the Wheelers’ front door has even closed behind them and Will—the smallest of the boys at barely 5′8 and about 120 pounds—smashing himself into the area between the backseats and the front, his stepsister El sitting on Mike’s lap and Dustin testy where he sits smashed in between the always overly affectionate couple and Lucas; still annoyed that petite Max who could easily sit in the back has called shotgun before him once again.

Being in the front seat, Max also has complete control of music, and she turns the radio all the way up, filling the car with the sound of the Pixies.

When they get to the movie theater, they all race inside to avoid the rain, leaving Steve to lock the car behind him, but they’re soaked nonetheless when they get inside, and after a rushed nose game Steve is once again the one to go back outside and get their tickets from the box office. The kids make it up to him though, and Dustin buys Steve his own medium popcorn, alongside the large one he’s sharing with the rest of the Party and the gummy bears he bought last minute. Steve, twenty-two and somehow still babysitting these assholes, buys himself a beer for the sake of his sanity.

They bicker for a few minutes before selecting a movie, and then ultimately agree on _Heathers_ , because 1) it’s rated R and the excitement of being actually allowed into rated R movies is one that still feels fresh despite having had the privilege for a year, 2) it’s playing in the next fifteen minutes, and 3) Will and El think the main actress looks familiar.

They select seats in the very back of the theater, where everyone can see everything with the extreme height difference between the tallest—Mike at 6′3—and shortest—Max at 5′2—of The Party.

The theater isn’t very crowded but El volunteers to sit on Mike’s lap again anyway, an offer that makes Max go, “If you’re gonna fuck, do it in private,” and Dustin exclaim, “Why? His legs are so bony they _have_ to hurt your ass.”

El and Mike sit farthest to the left, with Will beside Mike; and Lucas, Max, Dustin and Steve on the other side of him. The theater isn’t very crowded, and so Dustin makes a big overdramatic show of stretching his feet out and setting them on the top of the chair in front of him. Steve slaps his legs down immediately. “Come on man, don’t be rude.”

As soon as the movie begins, and Veronica Sawyer’s head is shown in the grass of her family’s freshly mowed suburban lawn, Will finds himself reaching for Mike’s arm in quiet reassurance, and asking in a whisper, “Is this movie gonna be scary?” Mike promises him that if it is they’ll leave.

Dustin, on the other hand, catches on to the dark comedic nature of the film from the very first line and goes into his ever annoying habit of laughing far too hard and too loud at every single joke. Max kicks him in the leg sharply, and he yelps loudly, earning them a shush from the young couple sitting a few rows ahead.

She finds herself even more pissed off however, when she shoves a handful of popcorn into her mouth, only to find something squishy and artificially strawberry flavored amidst the unnaturally cheesy taste. “DUSTIN, DID YOU PUT FUCKING GUMMY BEARS IN THE POPCORN?!”

Dustin simply responds, “It’s a gourmet, darling,” and then takes a swig from Steve’s beer bottle, causing his inner Officer Harrington to come out and threaten to arrest him. The young couple glares.

From the very first gunshot, Will finds himself practically jumping onto Mike, and Lucas pats his back soothingly, feeding him the gummy bears Max has begun to detach from the popcorn and set aside in a small pile of tainted cheese coated candy mammals in his hand.

El, still confused even a quarter into the movie, turns to Mike during Heather Chandler’s funeral scene, inquiring embarrassedly under her breath, “Wait, are they _all_ named Heather?” Mike also has the luxury of explaining bulimia and homosexuality—a subject that makes Will _particularly_ uncomfortable—to her as well.

By the climax of the movie Will is flinching at every new camera angle and when J.D.’s finger is blown off him and Mike head to the lobby so he can calm down a little, El trailing shortly behind with Steve’s car keys.

* * *

Will sits in the backseat of the car, his head on El’s lap and his feet on Mike’s, listening to the raindrops on the roof of the car while his stepsister plays with his long chestnut hair, desperately in need of a haircut since he decided to grow out his outdated bowlcut. They await on the other members of The Party calmly and patiently.

The radio plays quietly from the front seat, and El sings along slowly, the sweetness of her high voice overshadowing even the unnatural highness of prepubescent Joey McIntyre as she effortlessly recites the words to “I’ll Be Loving You (Forever).”

Eventually Mike joins along, and his tone deaf attempts at the ballad make both siblings cackle in their seats, heads thrown back in laughter as their lunges tighten with the strain of hilarity.

Mike’s cheeks burns red, but the shy smile on his face reveals he’s not quite as defensive of their lighthearted teasing as he pretends to be. A knock on the window startles them all, and the rest of their friends clamber into the car gracelessly, desperate to avoid the rain.

“Move, Wheeler!” Max falls on top of the three, and Lucas follows behind her. Dustin has called shotgun and he takes his seat beside Steve victoriously, moving back the seat just to spite Max and her gratuitous amount of leg room. Lucas, sitting underneath her now that Will has crawled into the space in between the two couples, kicks the back of Dustin's chair in protest, causing Steve to exclaim "Hey! Respect the vehicle!"

The ride home is one filled with laughter and out of tune singing. And, enveloped in one another's warmth, despite the storm clouds forming ahead, the interior of Steve's BMW feels assuredly sunny. It occurs to El, and not for the first time, that as the school year ends and the next one begins she will be more alone than she has felt in Hawkins in a long time, and the thought scares her in a way few things can. 

Come next autumn, Mike and Dustin will be going to Indianapolis, Max to California, Lucas to Maryland, and Will will be working so hard to afford his own college tuition that despite nothing but the thin wall separating their bedrooms in between them he will feel miles away. Unconsciously, El buries her face deeper into Mike's chest, and Max gives her a questioning glance from across the smashed back seat. Out of all The Party, Max is by far the most observant, and she notices her friend's sudden withdrawal almost immediately.

"What's wrong, Janie?" She asks gently, and the mood of the car shifts as all seven friends turn to comfort El. Dustin turns down the radio slightly, and El looks away, slightly embarrassed.

"I just don't want high school to end," she says quietly, twisting the pink and silver promise ring about her finger. Mike holds her hands in his, stopping her nervous fidgeting.

"Just because it's ending, doesn't mean The Party is," Will says, reassuringly.

"Yeah," Max says, "I'll always come back and visit you, Janie." She rolls her eyes at Mike. "And Lover Boy over here is probably gonna be married to you within a few years from now, so you know you're never gonna lose him."

"I'll be on the same campus as Mike," Dustin adds in, "and whenever he comes down to visit I'll come too."

"And Mike and I only live a block away from one another," Lucas confirms, "it'll be impossible not to see you whenever I come back for the holidays."

"And what about me?" Will says teasingly. "Is your brother not enough for you?"

El punches him in the arm playfully. "You don't count, doofus," she tells Will. "I'm stuck with you."

"You're stuck with all of us," Steve says from the front seat, reminding the rest that he's there. "At the rate we're going, I'm gonna be babysitting you kids until you have kids yourselves."

"Good to know I'll never need to hire a nanny," Dustin says.

"Oh, _puh-lease_ ," Max teases, "when are you gonna get anyone pregnant?"

"Hey! I'll let you know, Mayfield, that I have women lined up left and right looking for a piece of this!" He flashes a smile and a dorky wink.

"Dustin is a lady's man," Steve says, patting him on the shoulder affectionately. "Learned from the best."

Max cackles, and the contagiousness of her laugh makes the others join in, distracting them all from their worries.

"You just wait," Dustin says ruefully, "one day I'm gonna have a super hot girlfriend. And, she's gonna have _huge_ knockers!"

_"Dustin!"_

**Author's Note:**

> Heathers is an American black comedy film released in the United States on Friday, March 31, 1989, and starring Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannon Doherty, Kim Walker, and Lisanne Falk. The film was written by Daniel Waters and directed by Michael Lehmann and follows the story of Veronica Sawyer, a teenage girl who's the fourth member of the most powerful clique at her suburban Ohio high school, alongside Heather Chandler, Heather Duke, and Heather McNamara. However, when mysterious bad boy Jason "J.D." Dean arrives in town, she falls for him immediately and finds herself murdering the most popular students of her school alongside him and framing the deaths as suicides. 
> 
> The film has been adapted into an award-winning musical and unfortunate 2018 television series, and the original was ranked number 5 on the Entertainment Weekly list of the “50 Best High School Movies” in 2015 and gained number 412 on Empire’s list of “The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.” It is by far one of my favorite films ever, and even starring actress Winona Ryder has shared her admiration for the movie several times, often gushing in interviews even 30 years after it’s original release about how proud she is of her role.
> 
> The Pixies are an American alternative rock band founded in 1986 in Boston, Massachusetts, originally consisting of Black Francis, Joey Santiago, Kim Deal, and David Lovering. Their first full-length studio album, Surfer Rosa, was released in 1988 and despite receiving critical acclaim and “Album of the Year” in Europe, the record was not certified Gold in the United States until 2005. The most well-known song off the album is definitely “Where Is My Mind?” which was featured at the end of the critically acclaimed 2000 movie Fight Club.
> 
> New Kids on the Block is an American boy band also from Boston, Massachusetts, and as of 1989 consisted of Jonathan Knight, Jordan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, Danny Wood, and Jamie Kelly. They released their first bubblegum pop full-length studio album, the self-titled New Kids on the Block in 1986, although the album was a complete flop and it wasn’t until their sound expanded to a R&B, hip hop, and blue-eyed soul inspired and their sophomore album Hangin’ Tough was released in 1988 that they gained mass commercial success. Their songs, “Please Don’t Go Girl,” “You Got It (The Right Stuff),” “I’ll Be Loving You (Forever),” “Cover Girl,” and “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)” were all top five hits and “I’ll Be Loving You (Forever)” is what El sings to Will and Mike in the car.  
> If you’re also a member of the Stephen King fandom, you’ll know that in the 2017 remake of It—which also takes place in summer of 1989—there are also several references to New Kids on the Block, and this is part of the reason I chose this band to play a role in this story in the first place.
> 
> All the movies and music mentioned in this story are a fucking bop and a half and I hope you check them all out.


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